About 10:50pm took the dog out for a last bathroom break of the day before bed and observed a steady glowing orange/red light in the northeast moving toward the southwest. the cloud ceiling was probably 2500 feet or so and if i had to guess on distance from me it was a mile or two and at 1000-1500 feet. the glow was steady and fairly bright with very little atmospheric flickering. temp was about 50 degrees with no precipitation. the light seemed like it was descending as it approached and it gained in size slightly as it moved closer to my viewing position. it then slowed or stopped and appeared to vertically descend on the horizon about 5-10 degrees where it hung motionless for about 10 seconds. i heard no sound of engines or propellers. i wasn't even hearing traffic on the freeway which is about 2 miles to the north so it was a very quiet evening. the light then started to accelerate (slightly faster than it had when it approached) away from me toward the northwest and ascend to where it disappeared into the clouds and the light dimmed to not visible to the eye. i remained outside for another 5 minutes but it did no reappear anywhere in my viewing area. i'm mainly reporting this hopefully corroborate any other report of this same event. i've tried to rule out this being a chinese lantern (too solid and large of a light) and a drone (too high and too large of a light, illegally illuminated with orange). the light was about half the size of a fingernail at arm's length. no structure or wings/appendages visible from my distance if it had any, just a solid spherical ball of light. i couldn't tell if the entire object was solid as this color or if it was a light, but as it moved away and became smaller, the light shape didn't change. i see all sorts of commercial/private craft, military tankers and medical helicopters. there aren't any military helo stationed around this area but they do operate around here now and then but you can hear them from several miles away.